


Said and Unsaid

by lily_briscoe



Category: Call the Midwife
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 10:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8664514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_briscoe/pseuds/lily_briscoe
Summary: Patsy is far too quiet, and Delia aims to find out why.





	

**Author's Note:**

> With all the hate speech that's been expressed these last few weeks in my country, I wanted to do a little cathartic writing on the topic. It's a little raw and written somewhat in haste, so perhaps not my best. But, as usual, Delia's the ray of hope in the gloom. Hope you enjoy.

**Said and Unsaid**

            She’s seen her like this before.

            Tired, yes. Exhausted, even. Run off her feet by the laboring mothers of Poplar, the ailments of the young and the old.

            But this is a different kind of listlessness, of lethargy – one that only appears when something’s really gotten to her, crept beneath that alabaster skin and taken up residence a stone’s throw from her heart.

            Delia sees it in the way her eyes linger vacantly on empty air, her cigarette smoldering as she nurses her coffee in small, infrequent sips.

            Her Patsy is in there, Delia knows, and she will offer the care that’s needed to coax the girl she loves gently out of this shell of herself.

            But it breaks her heart to have to tread so carefully, when all she wants to do is run into her lover’s arms.

            “You’re quiet tonight.”

            Patsy snaps from her stupor, taking another long drag as she shifts awkwardly in her seat.

            “Sorry I’m not better company.”

            The redhead winces at the bitterness in her own voice, but says no more. Delia does her utmost to pretend it doesn’t sting.

            “Would you rather go back to Nonnatus? Get an early night?” she asks, her tone all concern and no resentment.

            Patsy softens; slumps; crumbles, nearly imperceptibly. Her hand shakes as she brings the cigarette back to her lips.

            “No, Delia,” she replies, her features strained by contrition and the weight of her own thoughts. “I want to be here with you.”

            Delia sees her fingers clench into a fist on her lap, as though aching to reach out for her lover’s hand and denying the impulse. A frown etches itself along the brunette’s features, equal parts sadness at Patsy’s distress and frustration at not knowing its source, not being able to help or to soothe her until every scrap of unhappiness she’s ever had has been swept away.

            “But you aren’t here, _cariad._ Not really,” she finds herself saying. “You’re far away somewhere.”

            Patsy closes her eyes, exhales, stubs out her cigarette – caught out.

            “I don’t know what you mean.” Her tone is clipped, brisk, tinged with that false brightness that renders her features more a grimace than a smile.

            Delia has done this dance with her too many times not to know the steps by heart, but it’s been a while since her feet have had to follow them.

            “Don’t do this, Patsy.” Her voice is stern, but layered with emotion. Patsy’s eyes widen at her earnestness. “Don’t freeze up, close yourself off, shut me out. Not when we’ve come as far as we have these past few weeks.”

            They really have moved forward. By leaps and bounds, truth be known. Since most of Nonnatus shipped off to South Africa, leaving only Patsy, Delia, and Sisters Mary Cynthia and Monica Joan to hold the fort, the arrangement has afforded the two women many more opportunities for time alone. It seemed perfectly reasonable that Delia should move into Patsy’s room for the duration, and the sheer lack of numbers in the house has made for fewer sets of prying eyes and ears. It also means fewer names on the rota, however, so business has been rather brisk most of the time. But to have a space that is solely _theirs,_ where they can close the door at night and revel in each others’ touch when shifts allow for it – that is a sort of bliss that neither had been sure would ever come to them again.

            Patsy herself has nearly come to match Delia’s confidence in gestures of (semi)public affection. Reaching out to hold her hand over a late cup of Bournevita, or on the arm of the sofa as Sister Monica Joan sits enthralled by the television. Kissing her on the cheek before she leaves for training in the mornings - after a quick scan of the hall for a glimpse of a wimple, mind. Pulling her into the broom cupboard and making her see stars in more ways than one.

            The way Patsy’s eyes would shift in paranoid fear, her hand curling in on itself when another tried to reach for it – these have faded somewhat in the wake of their newfound sliver of freedom.

            But now her gaze flickers round the café and her nails bite into her palms, and Delia wants to scream.

            “Pats, please, just tell me,” she implores. “Here, or we could go home and talk. But don’t hide from me. Not anymore.”

            Blue eyes brightened by unshed tears meet hers, and she knows she’s struck a nerve.

            Not here. Home it will have to be.

            Delia gathers her coat and bag and Patsy does the same, mechanically, as she has done countless times before at this very table.

            Their (thankfully short) walk home is filled with anything but companionable silence, and the nuns have already retired to their rooms by the time the two nurses return to the house.

            After a usual night out, the two would perhaps go into the kitchen to put the kettle on, whispering over tea into the small hours if they’d been spared early shifts the next day.

            But tonight they trudge up the stairs, beset by the burden of things unsaid and unknown.

            As the door clicks closed, Patsy slumps down on Delia’s bed, coat on, bag forgotten on the floor, her customarily impeccable manners and tidiness a victim to her gloom.

            It nearly breaks Delia to see her this way.

            The brunette, shedding her own coat, comes to sit beside her lover. Patsy’s eyes are unfocused and dull, and the nails of her right hand absently dig into the cuticles of her left.

            Delia remains silent. Words failing her, she cradles Patsy’s face in her palms and kisses her, impossibly softly, but with every ounce of love she has.

            Patsy sighs, whimpers, pulls herself away, her fingers hovering over Delia’s lips, their foreheads touching as her features clench to stem the tide of tears.

            “I love you,” she rasps, her voice hoarse with emotion. “I love you, but I’m so afraid.”

            “But why, _cariad_?”

            Her breath is warm on Patsy’s fingertips, and her hand reaches up to tuck a titian curl behind an ear.

            Patsy swallows thickly.

            “I was cycling down the Dock Road today, past the park, coming home from Mrs. Jeffries’ fourth, when I heard shouting.”

            She pauses, gathering herself.

            “Not the usual playful taunts. Hurtful things. Ugly things. So I pulled over, walked my bike to where they were coming from.”

            She bites her lip.

            “There was a little boy, huddled in the corner of the playground, terrified. They were throwing things at him – pebbles, sticks – calling him ‘fairy boy’ and ‘qu–’”

            She chokes on the word, coughs, swallows it.

            “I broke it up, of course. Sent those little brutes running. But before I could say anything to the boy, he’d taken off in the other direction. Disappeared down Hale Street. I had to walk my bike home, I was shaking that badly.”

            Delia thumbs away a rogue tear that has slipped onto the pale cheek opposite hers.

            “I won’t pretend it doesn’t hurt me, too, to hear that, Pats,” she murmurs, continuing to stroke the soft skin beneath her fingers. “But to see it firsthand – how awful for you, love.”

            “I just felt so useless,” the midwife grits through clenched teeth. “So utterly useless. I couldn’t talk to him, help him in the way I wanted to, not without giving myself – everything – away.”

            “You did help, Pats –”

            “But not enough.” Her voice cracks under the weight of pain. “Not enough.”

            Her arms reach out for Delia then, and the Welsh nurse pulls her close, placing a kiss atop her head as her fingers slide through auburn strands, thinking.

            “ _Cariad,_ you said this was this afternoon?”

            Patsy stirs from her haze slightly. She always seems to melt into Delia, body and soul, when she holds her this way.

            “Hmm? Yes…yes, perhaps a quarter past three.”

            “So there were other people about, then? The Dock Road is usually less than quiet at that time of day.”

            “Yes, I suppose there was a fair amount of people walking.”

            Delia feels Patsy’s brow furrow against her collarbone, still unaware of what the brunette is getting at.

            “Were they as close as you were to the park? Could they hear what was being said?”

            “Some of them, I suppose.”

            Delia pulls back slightly, tilting Patsy’s chin with her finger so their eyes can meet.

            “And yet you were the only one who stopped.”

            Patsy’s quizzical look evaporates, crystallizing into a loving gaze.

            “You did help, Pats. You did.”

            The redhead leans in to kiss her then, and Delia wonders, for what seems the millionth time, if she’ll ever get enough of this woman.

            “How is it that you always manage to say the right thing?” the midwife asks softly, her breath ghosting across Delia’s lips.

            “Well, Patience Mount,” those lips reply, curling into a smirk, “you may not be as impossible of an enigma as you’d like to imagine.”

            Patsy affects a look of mock outrage, tinged with nascent lust, and Delia finds herself amazed that she hasn’t yet melted into a puddle.

            “Is that so, Nurse Busby?” An eyebrow arcs in challenge, and Delia meets it.

            “It doesn’t mean you’re any less mysterious or alluring.”

            “You’re forgiven.”

            “And you’re too quick to forgive.”

            “And you’re a facetious little minx. You know perfectly well you could charm the slacks off me any day of the week without the slightest bit of effort.”

            “Well, if you keep using words like ‘facetious’ while you’re in my bed, I can’t possibly be held responsible for the condition of your slacks by the time I’m done with them.”

            And then Delia feels herself silenced, pushed back, enveloped, and suddenly words couldn’t matter less.

**Author's Note:**

> And there we have it, dears. I suppose I wanted to compare and contrast the ways that both speech and silence can be both hurtful and helpful/beautiful. Pats and Deels comfort each other with their words, but they also communicate so much without them, so I hope both things came through in this. Thanks for reading :)


End file.
